Thursday, November 19, 2009

Gate C22 - Ellen Bass

At gate C22 in the Portland airporta man in a broad-band leather hat kisseda woman arriving from Orange County.They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long afterthe other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-onsand wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each otherlike he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,like she'd been released at last from ICU, snappedout of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it downfrom Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.She carried a few extra pounds you could imagineher saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavishkisses like the ocean in the early morning,the way it gathers and swells, suckingeach rock under, swallowing itagain and again. We were all watching —passengers waiting for the delayed flightto San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man sellingsunglasses. We couldn't look away. We couldtaste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew backand looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almostas though he were a mother still open from giving birth,as your mother must have looked at you, no matterwhat happened after — if she beat you or left you oryou're lonely now — you once lay there, the vernixnot yet wiped off, and someone gazed at youas if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.The whole wing of the airport hushed,all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.